kebedebahdan...

oh my god, jane is back.

anyway, laptop recovered all well in the hospital and is back to provide it's services. while i had no internet to spend my time on, i spend it on the tevee, many many many hours of tevee. really. i spend so many hours on the tevee, nothing but a bummer with a big ass, seriously, i do spent like 8 hours straight on the tevee, just watching nothing and rewatching nothing. i don't know why but i am capable of doing so.

anyhows...last Monday,i waited all day long, in excitement for Prison Break and dang it, there was baseball game on, thus Prison Break was not aired. i was very bumped. switching from one channel to another to another..then i decided to only switch between discovery channel, disney channel (never too old), VH1 and the history channel. back and forth back and forth. on one incident, it happened that all of the four channels were on commercial break, so i swtiched to travel channel, and the voice on tevee was saying, 'so here i am on the last day, in ... ' in that split second, i thought to myself, say Malaysia.. though i was highly doubtful that the voice will say Malaysia, but it did! Anthony Bordain, the host, was in Malaysia. but unfortunately, it was already his last day, so i only watched the last 3 minutes of it. but it was no familiar sight for me, it had rumah panjang, tribal people and lotsa greens, so i figured, it must be either Sabah or Sarawak. but it feels good to know that a travel channel program did made it to Malaysia. =)

being here, in a country so big, so ignorant to the outside world, regular common everyday people, generally, i assume, do not know much other than what is happening in their own town/city. and with that, obviously they do not know where Malaysia is. being that Malaysia is a small country. i have spoken to many people in the course of the time that i am here. people would ask me where am i from, and when i say Malaysia, you can see in their eyes that they have no clue. there are some very interesting conversations that i had with these kinda people.

conversation #1 :

the people 1 : so where are you from?
me : i am from Malaysia.
the people 1 : oh, wow. how is Malaysia like? what kinda language do they speak there?
me : well, Malaysia is a coutry very rich in culture. majority of the people there are malays and the rest are chinese and indians. i am a Malaysian chinese, therefore i speak chinese, i do not speak mandarin but i speak another dialek called hokkien, i also speak malay and of course english.
the people 1 : oh, wow. hokkien, my mum speaks that.
me : oh. do you?
the people 1 : no, i don't. my mum is from vietnam and they speak something similar to hokkien i think.
me : oh, so you are from vietnam?
the people 1 : no. i am from here. so...do they have fast food in Malaysia?
me : ya, sure we do. we have McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut, ...
the people 1 : oh, wow. you do? how about Popeye's?
the people 2 : no. Popeye's is not that famous.
the people 3 : so, do they have computers in Malaysia?
me : yes, of course we do! its an advance country. we have mobile phones and all the technologies in Malaysia.
the people 1 & 3 : oh. (with suprised faces)
me : you should go to Malaysia. its a nice place.

its all i can say to end the conversation. it was utterly unbelieveable. i mean come on! how would they thought i came all the way here from Malaysia if there was no computer. swam the seven seas to get here?

conversation #2 :

the people : so where are you from?
me : i am from Malaysia.
the people : oh. cause our english is really good.
me : thanks. we do learn english in Malaysia...
the people : oh. really? cause they don't teach us anything here.
me : you don't know where is Malaysia huh.
the people : i know... (long pause)
me : serious?
the people : ya, its near Laos right?
me : errrrryaaa... you can say that. kinda.

Laos is a really really rare. i mean you will get, its near Singapore or Thailand, but Laos? i am not sure where Laos is myself. but i think it borders with Vietnam and Thailand. but well, sure its close enough. but if compared to conversation #1, its heaven and hell.

thats the only two i can remember out of some more. but its just adakah-patut-kebedebahdan, you know.

but i am still very proud of where i come from. there is never once that i would wish that i am not anak Malaysia. speaking about this, has youl heard the Malaysia unity song? check it out.